Residents living in “England’s prettiest village” which is overrun by tourists are up in arms after claims one local was injured during a parking bust up over Easter weekend. Bibury in the Cotswolds is a postcard-pretty village to visit but is swarmed with up to 20,000 visitors on weekends.
It is thought to be one of the most charming English villages and artist William Morris certainly thought so in the 1800s when he declared it to be “the most beautiful village in England.” Arlington Row in Bibury is believed to be home to the country’s most photographed and beautiful cottages. These cottages were built in 1380 as a monastic wool store and were then converted into weavers’ cottages in the 17th century.
With a population of just 600, residents are becoming increasingly upset with the large number of tourists and now tensions have reached new heights after a local claimed his foot was run over by a Range Rover during a parking dispute resulting in the cops being called.
Slamming the incident as “beyond a joke” resident Mark Honeyball told the Local Democracy Service he was injured after trying to stop a tourist parking illegally – something he says happens all too often.
He said: “I had to call the police on the day and they couldn’t get to me as a Range Rover had very nicely run over my foot in a dispute over where they shouldn’t be parking and did a quite bit of damage.
“It’s not broken, just badly bruised.”
Mr Honeyball added that in another altercation he had a tourists drive “along the pavement” at him.
He said: “He drove on the pavement. I had another one on Monday who I was asking to move off my drive and he just put his car into gear and drove along the pavement at me.”
Just last year Mr Honeyball told The Express how sometimes police cars are unable to get through the congested village roads.
“We’ve even had police cars not able to get through and had to go round the country lanes to get past, we’ve had ambulances that haven’t been able to get near to someone having a heart attack”, he said.
Over Easter weekend cars were backed up a mile up the road, according to Bibury Parish Council chairman Craig Chapman.
He told The Indpendent: “It was at its worst on Easter weekend because the weather was good. It was a complete and utter nightmare.”